FINGERPRINTS FOUND IN NICARICO HOME DON`T MATCH DUGAN`S

Pat Wingert and Art BarnumCHICAGO TRIBUNE

None of the fingerprints found in the home of Jeanine Nicarico, a 10-year-old Naperville girl who was kidnaped and murdered in 1983, matches those of convicted killer Brian Dugan, who has recently claimed he alone was responsible for the girl`s killing, sources close to the investigation said Monday.

The Du Page County sheriff`s office completed checks Monday on seven sets of fingerprints that were taken from the home shortly after the murder, the sources said.

Authorities have said all along that none of the fingerprints in the home matched those of the three men who were charged with the crime.

Two of those men, Alex Hernandez and Rolando Cruz, both 22, were convicted of the murder last February and are awaiting execution. A mistrial was declared for a third defendant, Stephen Buckley, 23, and he is to receive a new trial.

Also Monday, a Du Page County Circuit Court judge issued a gag order intended to shut off the flow of information about Dugan`s claim that he is responsible for the kidnap-slaying of the 10-year-old girl.

The case has been the subject of widespread media coverage since Dec. 11, when it was first reported that Dugan had made self-incriminating statements in the Nicarico killing.

''I am issuing an order that no one make any statement or release any information, documents, photographs,'' Judge Robert Nolan said in the Wheaton courtroom where he is to preside at Buckley`s new trial. Nolan imposed the gag order during a pretrial hearing on Buckley`s case.

Dugan, 29, of Aurora, is in the Pontiac Correctional Center, serving two terms of natural life for the rape and slaying of Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, and Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva.

Dugan avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty Nov. 19 to murder charges in the Ackerman and Schnorr killings.

Last week, at the first pretrial hearing for Buckley in the Nicarico case since Dugan`s self-incriminating statements, Judge Nolan asked all parties involved to restrain their statements to ensure a fair trial for Buckley.

On Monday, after a week of continued reports in newspapers and on radio and television about the investigation of Dugan`s statements, Nolan said:

''I want no characterization of any court proceedings in regards to any of the three cases--Buckley, Cruz or Hernandez--and this applies to all attorneys of record, both current and previous, both prosecution and defense, to the Du Page County sheriff`s office, to any state agencies involved in the investigation and to all police agencies that might be investigating.''

Sources close to the investigation noted that Dugan has previously told investigators where to find a tire iron with which he said he beat the child, and the muddied boots he said he wore when he supposedly committed the crime, but neither was found.

Dugan also directed investigators to an address where he said they would find an elderly woman who lent him a screw driver minutes before he drove to the Nicarico house, but the woman described had never lived in the house or the area, investigators said previously.